!SCSIForm missing from HardDisc4 archive

Hi,

I am trying to install RISCOS on a Beagleboard xM Rev. C. Following the ‘If you don’t have an existing RISC OS device with USB support’ procedure on the Generic OMAP port page I got to the stage of running the ‘InstallHD4’ script and found that !SCSIForm does not exist in HardDisc4.Utilities. Should there not be a folder called USB-Mass? Is it possible to download !SCSIForm separately as I cannot find it even in the ‘Collections of pre-built components’.

Thanks for any help you can give.

David

You should use !HForm now, which entirely replaces !SCSIForm.
Perhaps someone nice could update the instructions & screenshot?

Thanks for updating the script – I should’ve realised about it during that other discussion about the formatter! Anyway, I’m happy to revise the instructions (prob not before Tue eve) unless someone beats me to it.

Thanks for your reply. !HForm works fine.

The problem I get now is that on switching on the board I get the message ‘Waiting for boot drive to be ready; press Escape to cancel’. Tried the ‘Harddisk’ in all USB ports but no difference.

The odd thing is that when I go to the desktop, I cannot see the USB drive unless I take it out and then put it back in again. (I had this problem from the setting up stage.) When I do reconnect the USB drive it shows the correct Harddisk structure.

I tried again with the MLO and U-BOOT.BIN files issued with my Rev. C board, but the same problem occurs. Do the USB ports have to be initialised somehow?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The first thing is that the delay from “Waiting for boot drive to be ready; press Escape to cancel” until the boot process starts, can be worryingly long.

However, I suspect that the OS is waiting for the wrong drive to be ready. If you have a non-removable drive, it should be drive 4; a removable drive should be drive 0. The boot drive number is stored in the “CMOS RAM” and is accessed via the “status” and “configure” commands.

Thanks for this. Waited half an hour so far and still no progress beyond the ‘waiting’ statement. I have looked at ‘status’. Which item do I need to look at/change here? On the desktop the drive appears as drive 0.

The delay is only about a minute (it just seems like an eternity when you’re sitting there looking at it).

I believe the configuration item is SCSIFSDrive.

(My apologies for the delay in replying; a power brown-out killed our broadband just before I was tried to post my reply.)

Thanks. The delay I get is more like half an hour, after which I do get some memory allocation error. (I did not write down the error before switching it off so am running it again now.)

SCSIFSdrive is set to ‘0’. If I type in *SCSIFSdrive 0 the initial response I get is

‘The disc drive is empty (Error number &11AD3)’

If I take the USB stick out and then replace it, I get a different response for the same command:

‘File ’SCSIFSdrive’ not found (Error number &D6)’

Trying to change SCSIFSdrive to any other number gets the empty drive response. Are there any other parameters in configure to look at?

I don’t think there is any more configuration to do.

From here on I can only make guesses: is the drive bootable? Does it contain a valid !Boot structure?

The drive appears to be bootable: if I go to the desktop and look at the files on the disk, programs are displayed with correct sprites and can be run.

On the taskbar, the disk appears as :0 and if I open the window the title bar shows ‘SCSI::HardDisc0.$’. If I look at ‘Free’ I get the correct disk size of 1005M. ‘Verify’ gives the error:

Message from SCSIFiler

Filing system or path ADFSFiler: not present

Also, though most programs run, !ShowScrap gives the error:

Message from Filer

Filing system SCSI: must be given a filename.

Does this suggest I need to name the disk? Is there any way to verify if the drive is bootable from the command line?

Is there any way to verify if the drive is bootable from the command line?

If the board is booted to the Supervisor (USB ‘Harddisk’ not connected), what happens if you then insert it at that point? I can’t remember the name of the * command, but isn’t it possible to list connected devices somehow? You can then catalog the various drive numbers. When (and if) you’ve found the right one, change to that drive and try typing !boot.

If I insert the USB stick at the Supervisor prompt and type:

*dir SCSI::HardDisc0.$
*!Boot

The desktop boots, but also creates a RAM disc (not sure if this is normal). I am able to open the !Boot structure on the USB stick so I assume it is booting OK (the *dir command seems to be superfluous as the same result is obtained if I just type !Boot after connecting the stick).

So, the main problem seems to be that the USB drive is not mounted when the board is turned on and needs to be connected manually afterwards. This is fine, though of course it would be better if it did mount automatically.

How about trying this image?

David have you done *opt4,2 on your disc?
Your disc is named HardDisc0 that is not necessarily the drive number at power up. I don’t know if usb devices plugged into a BB can show up as different drive numbers at different times or not, i.e. two identical usb sticks plugged in separately or together.
To check try *.:0 and *.:4 , the only other thing I can think to suggest is trying alternately
*con. Drive 0
*con. Drive 4
and seeing if that helps.

Thanks, Trevor. I tried the other image but got the same effect.

Andrew, *.:0 returns

Dir. SCSI::HarDisc0.$ Option 02 (Run)
CSD SCSI:“Unset”
Lib. SCSI:“Unset”
URD SCSI:“Unset”

Followed by a list of directories. Putting the USB stick into another USB socket does not change this.

*con. Drive 0 gives an option not recognised error (&DC)

What does opt4,2 do?

Thanks for your help.

When I run !Boot from the USB, I get the following error before entering the desktop:

Message from Desktop

Machine startup has not completed successfully: ‘Escape’

Also, though I am able to check what is in the boot directory, I am not able to edit it. Perhaps this is a file access problem?

What does opt4,2 do?

Marks the drive as bootable, but the drive should still be marked as the one to boot from e.g. *configure drive 4

Some of these commands are in the wiki.

The desktop boots, but also creates a RAM disc (not sure if this is normal).

If a ram disc is configured then it is created at the appropriate size when starting up. Normally it would be configured in Boot-configure-discs, but on BB without CMOS support it is configured from a file on the SD card, or perhaps by running an obey file with the appropriate configure command during boot.

Many thanks, Chris.

I have the feeling it is some setting on the SD card with the ROM/CMOS etc. files, as it gives the message about waiting for the boot drive to be ready irrespective of whether the USB harddisc is connected or not. Is there anything I can look for on the SD card that might relate to this?

As it’s a SCSI drive you need to *configure SCSIFSDrive X (where X is 0 or 4 accordingly). *configure Drive is for ADFS. Also *configure Boot

Thanks, Grahame. I tried this, but no change – the system continues to hang at the waiting for boot drive message unless I press escape.

(If I do boot from the USB, then restart RISC OS (i.e. not switching off and on the mains supply) the problem remains.)

David

What hard Disc and ROM image are you using.

If you are using the 22nd Dec ROM and Hard Disc images then they both have issues that result in a system that either does not boot correctly or work correctly and this has been discussed in many threads on this forum.

Ideally some new build will be available soon or obatin working copies via forum member Rob Heaton.

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/828?page=4

https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/5/topics/846

Thanks, Doug.

I now have the latest ROM from Rob Heaton’s site and the harddisc image from

http://www.robheaton.co.uk/riscos/harddisc.zip

The result is the same. Is there anything I can add to uEnv.txt (or other file on the SD card) that could help?

David can you do a *status and post the output from it?